In the movie business, the word “experimental” is often used to explain why a film is so different from others — why we see so many new techniques, the use of old gadgets and so on. However, sometimes the word “experimental” is used as an excuse. An excuse that explains why the film is simply no good. I, for one, think it’s time people stop making excuses and just make a good film — be it different or the same, let it all be good. This brings me to “The Girlfriend Experience.”
With a plot that could have been thought up during a visit to the bathroom, the writers of “Ocean’s Thirteen” team up once more with acclaimed director Steven Soderbergh for a fairly inadequate piece of work.
We are left to learn about the life of high-end call girl Chelsea (Sasha Grey). Being a call girl, she of course provides men with sexual pleasure, but she also aims to achieve more than just physical contact — she aims to achieve closeness and comfortability as she tries to provide the men with what is known as the “girlfriend experience.” Meanwhile, her boyfriend Chris (Chris Santos), a personal trainer, is okay with her line of work. All is well until Chelsea decides to make one man more than just a client — putting her relationship and career on the line.
I have many problems with this movie. In fact, the list of things I didn’t like about it might actually be longer than the movie itself. While I praise him for his amazing work on “Traffic,” I am not a hug fan of Steven Soderbergh, although, I believe he is much better than the work he put forth in this film.
The script itself is swiss cheese — the story has more holes than you can count and just a general lack of substance. There is more talk about the failing economy than there is about the characters and their relationships.
The directing is borderline lazy. The camera spends most of its time at a stand still while the characters have pointless conversations, leading me to wonder why Soderbergh would even need to be on the set during shooting.
The acting, if you can call it that, is all over the place. It is either grossly overacted or so underacted you can barely tell that you are watching a movie. Hearing how experimental it is and knowing that porn star Sasha Grey was starring in it, I expected at the very least that some boundaries would be pushed, but I was more than wrong. Besides one full frontal scene, that was filmed from rather far away, you have to wonder why they decided to cast such an amateur in this role instead of someone who could fulfill the task.
As you can tell, I didn’t come close to enjoying this cinematic piece of garbage, but it is my responsibility to properly disclose the information necessary to help your decision of whether or not you should see this film. I’m going to go one step further and just tell you what to do this time. Do not see this film — not in the theaters, not on DVD, not anywhere.